From mid August for 4 weeks a team, lead by Peter Mcnaughton, a fourth year architect student at the university of nottingham, is heading out to Riandu, kenya to build a secondary school for 200 deaf children. I will be joining them at the end of August for the last 2 weeks of the project.

- Currently there are 71 primary schools for deaf children in the country, but only 5 secondary schools.  Whilst there are primary schools in the area, there are currently no secondary schools in the eastern province of the country.

The idea was brought to Peter by the local mothers union, and therefore has the backing of the people in the area. Once set up, the government will fund the running of the school, however, they will not fund the initial costs of building the school.

We have a team of architectural students and fully qualified architects working on the designing of the project and ensuring a high standard, including a specialist in designing schools for children with special needs. Once we are there we will then be working with local contractors in order to build some of the buildings during this first phase of the project, after which about 20 students will start their secondary education.

It is therefore a great project to get involved with and help out to really make a difference for the local deaf people. The team aim to raise a total of £80,000 for phase one. Half of this we seek to come from charities including Boots Hearingcare, and Manchester Deaf Centre, as well as from the University of Nottingham. The other half, we aim to raise as a team through local fundraising.

All donations will go straight to the project as personal costs such as flights and accommodation are financed completely separately.